[quote]bEVEsthda wrote...
??? But this is EA. The developers are part of EA. And EA do messup. That's why they win this poop award.[/quote]
I want to address this specifically: EA did not win this award because they messed up. EA won this award because sorry souls of this hell known as the internet lack perspective, and voted a luxury company as the worst company in the US. Make no mistake--this award is in no way indicative of reality.
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I mentioned this question about what's your point? Already before? I know that the developers have artistic freedom. That should have been obvious already from my previous posts. But that doesn't matter. Yes, the developers screw up. But there is likely a reason. Or else we wouldn't have this 100% screwup record. You want to believe, cathegorily, that since it's formally 'handsoff', EA doesn't have anything to do with it. That's not reasonable. Of course there is something in EA's ways to operate, which causes these disasters. Even if it's the 'hands-off' policy, itself. Now, I would say EA have many different customer-relations problems, but I've focused on their talent for messing up game franchises. But those other problems gives some hints, as well, that there is something peculiar about EA's company culture.[/quote]
I don't "believe." We were told by three separate sources that EA lets their studios make the games they want to make. Unless I have counter sources I cannot challenge this.
We don't.
This point is thus un-challenge-able.
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As I went into, already in my previous post, there are many ways in how a developer might be influenced, and reasonably always are.
Your answers seem, to me, to be spinal column, defensive statements for EA. Why? I'm not arguing that EA is some evil organisation which do these things on purpose. And I do not understand what your point is? Are you really arguing that nothing is wrong? There is no evidence in your posts that hint that you think anything is wrong? So no need for change, right? No need to examine what went wrong, right? Just continue, business as usual?
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I'm arguing that people like hate, and EA is the appropriate platform for that hate. I'm arguing that most of the arguments I see against EA are false.
I would not say there is nothing wrong: I would say there is no more wrong than any other company. Companies are companies. They're all greedy, they're all trying to make as much as they can for as little put down. No exceptions. People take exception to bash EA directly, and that's what I take issue with.
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That wasn't Spore's original DRM scheme. It was possible to play Spore offline. It only needed online authentication every tenth day.
The first DRM scheme entailed that each game-disc could only be installed three times. And each install needed an online connection. Further, Spore installed SecuROM on your computer without telling you so, any way whatsoever. It wasn't even mentioned in the EULA.
Now, I have to say that SecuROM have always promptly sent me patches that did indeed fix my various incompatibility problems with SecuROM. My experience with them was much better than my experience with EA customer support. But those things still meant many hours of frustration and extra work for me, many days with a dysfunctional PC. I'm not sure any of my problems were ever caused by the particular version of SecuROM that shipped with Spore. Still, people are wary of SecuROM for good reasons, and to just install it on peoples PCs, secretly, is quite offensive. Even illegal, I'm sure.
You have to keep in mind, that everybody then believed Spore was this wonderful game which we had followed for years in development. In one's mind, was thus the perception that one would live with this game and it's creations for a long time. Just like people do with previous versions of Sim City, for example. Also keep in mind that, not only a new computer, but also changes to the computer, like a new videocard, new hd, requires a new install of the game. So everybody immediately realized that the game would quickly be 'used up', had it got the life as a normal game. Another problem was that the game would also stop working the day the authentication servers were removed. And this for a game many had expected to be playing, on and off, for a decade, or even decades.
In the end nothing of this mattered, because gameplay was so abyssmally simplistic, uninteresting, even stupid. It wasn't the Maxis classic everybody had expected. This despite that the game contained fantastic, never before, or after, seen technology, which truly worked as advertized.
The problem was the gameplay, which was adapted for children. So in the end nobody cared, nobody reinstalled the game, nobody kept playing it. But that is beside the point. As is the fact that EA changed the DRM scheme to something much more acceptable: Five installs, and each uninstall could roll-back an install, and a removal tool for SecuROM was issued (which of course meant you couldn't play Spore any longer, but still...).
All that is beside the crucial point: Why could noone in EA see that the original DRM scheme was totally unacceptable? That's a complete mystery. And there you have a typical side of EA's problems.
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I do agree, that's a really bad DRM system. I don't care for that at all.
But EA isn't the only one to do it. Ubisoft, during their period where they went briefly insane, did the same thing with Anno 2070--only three installs, and changing your hardware (sufficiently) invalidated your install.
This tells me that EA is not alone in this. This tells me that this is something that may have become an industry standard if it had been accepted. This tells me that this is not a problem with EA, specifically. It's a problem with corporations trying to put as tight a hold on their customers as possible...a corporation problem.
People seem unwilling to view EA as a business, and rather as a person. That's only asking for disappointment.
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Of course Maxis screwed up. Is it important to blame the individual developer for you? Do you have a need to have EA stand shining, unblemished?
However, Maxis screwed up while being under a lot of pressure from EA's marketing, in tailoring the game for the market, which the marketing guys percveived for Spore. All decision were Maxis, sure. But they were under pressure to succeed, and they received lots and lots of "help" and "support" to "succeed", to "understand" what they had to do, to succeed. In particular about what the promised market for Spore looked like.
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Every argument here is conjecture.
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I think you miss this too. I meant the scandal-EULA. Not as it reads today. (though I'm sure it's still bad).
This pose the same question as Spore's DRM: How could it even happen?
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Nope, I was here when it happened. Here on BSN, when some of "us," pardon my French, sh*t bricks (I'm reminded of Bogsnot in particular). I read it. It wasn't much worse than Steam's--and again, it could only send out information if I let it. I don't let it.
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Of course they aren't! But making greedy and mischievously sinister statements, publicly, on them, is a bad thing.
Again this pose the question: - How could it even happen?
Wether microtransfers and DLC is good or bad is entirely up to the implementation. Just like DRM.
Here is unfortunately no reason to trust that EA is in a shape that knows how to make good implementations. And that's a problem.[/quote]
I cannot fathom a world where any statement a luxury company makes is "sinister." As for greedy, you seem to be forgetting--EA is a company. Companies are greedy.
I agree that implementation matters, but disagree about EA: in fact, EA's microtransactions, at least for ME3, were implemented in possibly the best way they could have.
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????
But yes, I sense that you somehow mainly want to argue that EA do not do bad things intentionally?
Why? Do you think I'm arguing that they do? Whether it's premeditated or not is not the issue.
That something, which should have been possible to prevent, and something which everybody else had foreseen and warned about, still is allowed to happen, does concern me. - Exactly these sort of things is at the core of EA's problems! EA has every reason to care, since it's EA that's damaged. Why are they so inept, at some things like these?
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This would fall under EA being inept, not EA being "bad."
I see few claiming that EA is inept. I see many claiming that EA is bad. That's why pointing out intentions is a big part of my arguments here.
And on the topic, it sure seems like it would be preventable, but I have no industry knowledge. I can't presume to know how preventable it would be. As such, I cannot come to the conclusion that you do.
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No, my main argument was that it was easy to see the various disasters long in advance. So the fact that EA didn't and don't, is an issue that likely lies at the core of their problems. It's an striking aspect of their ineptitude as a company. If I had any power inside EA, I would leave no stone unturned to get to the bottom of things like this.
There are things that desperately need to change. What exactly, I do not know, of course.[/quote]
This is a different argument than most. I can understand it.
[quote]Developers become "ruined", inside EA. This is a well-established fact. An actual, historic, tangible fact.
The exact cause, or theories or discussions about the causes, cannot be used to 'prove' or 'disprove' this fact. It's a connected issue, but a different thing. Highly interesting, particularly for EA themselves, but still, that's not that developers are ruined or not, it's why or how. And that's a different thing. Connected, relevant, but a different thing.[/quote]
This is well and good. But the argument is that EA ruins developers, not simply that developers become ruined.
I can accept that developers become ruined (dubiously). I do not accept that EA ruins developers.
[quote]I sense that you've skidded over the fact that EA studios did not have independence after Origin. It's a policy that reemerged somewhat more recently.
You also cling hard to your perception that the developers have independence, somehow rules out that they're not influenced. That position is not even reasonable. - Of course developer studios are affected and influenced by being a part of EA! That's selfevident. Already in previous post I gave examples of how that can work. Besides, we have all sorts of 'positive testimonials' from purchased developers, on how much help and support they get from EA and how great it is to be part of EA. Already there your argument crumbles into dust. Further, we also had public parts of a discussion on how EA perceive that Dead Space must change, in order for the franchise to continue. ...So basically, you're just wrong.
But all of that concerns your point. It's not my point. (I repeated my point a couple of paragraphs above.)
But of course, as long as EA don't have their act together, the more independence, the better.
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To say EA influences them is an easy statement. I don't argue that. To say what that influence is is a statement fraught with peril, very likely to be wrong.
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